January
Comments 2016

More than
22,000 children, including an eight-year-old, were held overnight
in cells in 2014-15, police figures show.

The 22,792
under-18s included one who was held for 15 days,

22,792 Children
were held overnight in police custody in 2014 - 2015, forces
said

• 8 is the age
of the youngest child held

• 380 hours is
the longest period a child was held

Criminal
justice experts said authorities were breaching their statutory
duties by detaining under 18s overnight in adult
cells.

But police said
there was a "lack of alternative accommodation", while local
authorities said they faced difficulties in finding emergency
care.

The figures,
which the BBC obtained through Freedom of Information requests to
England's 39 forces, showed that while the number of children
detained overnight had fallen, from 41,789 in 2011-12, experts
believed it was still too high.

Gloucestershire
Police said the youngest child held in a cell was eight years
old..

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 01:42 PM

2/2...The
law states that, once charged, anyone under 18 should be bailed to
their home or transferred to local authority accommodation unless
it is impracticable, or the child needs secure accommodation and it
is not available.

"In my eight
years of representing children, I have never once known a child to
be transferred to overnight accommodation," said Jennifer Twite, a
barrister with Just

For Kids, a
charity that campaigns on behalf of children in the justice
system.

"The number of
children held overnight is shocking and unacceptable.

"Local
authorities are under a legal duty to provide overnight
accommodation for these children, many of whom are acutely
vulnerable and in great distress."

Most forces
were unable to provide information about how many under-18s were
successfully transferred to council accommodation but in one force
Merseyside just three out of 73 children were transferred in June
and July 2015.

Her Majesty's
Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) which independently assesses
police forces said custody staff at some forces including
Bedfordshire had "never known secure accommodation to be made
available for children.and had stopped requesting this
facility".

HMIC said: "No
police force is doing enough to work with local authorities to get
secure accommodation."

Frances Crook,
chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "The
police know cells are not a nursery or a school.

"They are not
an appropriate place for children to be.

"Police
stations are noisy and full of adults - some of whom are drunk and
dangerous.

"The cells are
often subterranean and really unpleasant places."

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 01:36 PM

The Evil
That Men Do...

Man accused of
raping girl, 12, at knifepoint…

A man will
appear in court accused of raping a 12-year-old girl at knifepoint
and claiming to be a police officer.

Apedelrazak
Badram, 32, has been charged with three sexual offences and two
counts of impersonating a police officer, Scotland Yard
said.

The girl was
raped near Sandhurst Road in Edmonton, north London, on
Wednesday.

Detectives said
it was linked to a second attempted assault on another 12-year-old
girl the same day.

The girl
attacked in nearby Shirley Grove managed to escape.

Mr Badram, of
Enfield, north London, is also charged with false imprisonment, two
counts of breaching a sexual offences prevention order, possession
of class B drugs and theft.

He will appear
in custody at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on
Saturday

A youth club
worker at an evangelical church who indecently assaulted a teenage
girl 'every day' has been jailed for two years.

Richard
Blackburn (57), a Land Rover mechanic from Carnone, Raphoe, Co
Donegal, pleaded guilty to three specimen charges relating to a
series of sexual assaults on the girl between 2000 and
2002.

Most of the
attacks took place in the back of a converted Mercedes van which he
used to take children to and from a youth club in Raphoe run by the
Congregational Church.

The victim, who
is now aged 29, wrote to the court from abroad, where she now
lives, to ask the court to allow her attacker to be named in the
media.

In her powerful
victim impact statement, read to the court by investigating officer
Det Sgt Ciaran Brolly, she told how she was now afraid to return
home to Ireland for fear of meeting Blackburn.

Her life, she
said, had been destroyed and simple things for most people like
going to the shop were now nerve-racking experiences.

"It is like my
teenage years didn't exist at all.

What happened
to me was life-altering, dark and very scary. Richard Blackburn was
a trusted family friend.

"He knew me
from birth and therefore he knew my age.

I was abused
daily. For years, he convinced me it was all my fault but I now
know it wasn't my fault.

"When I go home
to Ireland I am afraid to meet him in the street.

I wanted to
spend time there when my granny was unwell and she died
recently.

I didn't get to
spend that special time with her."

The victim, now
a school teacher, said she doesn't sleep at night and constantly
feels nervous.

Judge John
O'Hagan said Blackburn had breached the trust of an impressionable
young girl in her formative years.

Blackburn, said
the judge, had put his victim through an "absolutely traumatic"
experience which had left deep scars on her life.

He sentenced
Blackburn to three two-year prison sentences to run concurrently,
with the last year suspended.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:57 PM

1/2...Woman
challenges Magdalene redress refusal…

A woman who
claims she was forced to work unpaid in a Magdalene laundry for 10
years has challenged the minister for justice’s decision excluding
her from the State’s redress scheme for victims of those
institutions.

The woman
claims she was used as forced and unpaid labour from the age of
eight to 18 at two laundries, in Waterford and Dublin, during the
1970s and early 1980s.

She had applied
to be included in the redress scheme established in 2013 to
compensate survivors of the Magdalene laundries but her application
was turned down on the grounds that, at the relevant time, she was
a resident of industrial schools and not the laundries
themselves.

Michael Lynn,
counsel for the woman, said the minister had, in her refusal, told
the woman she should have sought compensation under the Residential
Institutions Redress Scheme.

However, his
client, because she lives abroad, did not hear about that scheme in
time, and her application for inclusion in it was refused as being
out of time.

In her
proceedings against the minister for justice, the woman wants an
order quashing the minister’s refusal to admit her to the
laundries’ redress scheme.

In a sworn
statement, the woman said she had worked at St Mary’s Laundry, Cork
Rd, Waterford, and St Mary’s Refuge Magdalen Laundry, Grace Park
Rd, Drumcondra, Dublin.

She said she
was just two when she was taken from her family and does not know
why she was taken away.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:55 PM

2/2...She
was placed at St Dominic’s Industrial School for girls in
Waterford, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and, from the
age of eight, was forced to work at the nearby St Mary’s Laundry in
Waterford, she said.

She worked
there after school on Saturdays or on days when she refused to go
to school, but was given a Saturday off to make her First Holy
Communion.

She said that
she was transferred to Dublin as a teenager and placed at An
Grianán Institution in Drumcondra.

She claims she
also was compelled to work at St Mary’s Refuge Magdalene Laundry,
which was in the same building as An Grianán, after school and on
Saturdays. She also claims she was subject to sexual and physical
abuse in An Grianán.

Mr Lynn argued
the refusal to admit his client to the redress scheme “flies in the
face of reason and common sense”.

He claimed the
minister erred in law by adopting an interpretation of the scheme
at variance with the plain and ordinary meaning of the words within
it and the refusal violated his client’s right to justice, breached
fair procedures, and was irrational and unreasonable.

What happened
to his client when she was in the institutions was
“horrendous”.

The minister
failed to take into account children placed at St Dominick’s
Industrial School and An Grianán worked in the laundries, or a
report by the HSE which stated An Grianán and St Mary’s in
Drumcondra were not separate institutions but “one and the same”,
he said.

Permission to
bring the proceedings was granted, on an ex-parte basis by Ms
Justice Deidre Murphy.

The case comes
back before the court in March.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:53 PM

1/2...Child
abuse survivors take their former Catholic diocese to
court…

Survivors of
child abuse within the Catholic Church are taking their former
diocese to court after allegations of an institutional cover-up
going back decades.

The claims
dating back to the 1950s and featuring pupils at a church school in
the north west of England mirror those in the recent Spotlight
film, tipped for Oscars success for its real-life depiction of
similar allegations in the Catholic Church in Boston, US, in the
1980s.

Lawyers acting
on behalf of the British victims, who were aged between 11 and 15
at the time of the abuse, said they hope the positivity met with
Spotlight's release will help give other victims the strength to
come forward and make allegations.

Thomas Beale,
representing victims with London-based child abuse lawyers AO
Advocates, said there were "significant" similarities between
Spotlight and the allegations of abuse at St Bede's Catholic school
in Manchester decades ago.

He said: "I
hope society is moving in the right direction and the film can only
help that.

"In our
clients' case, knowing there are other people suffering in the same
way gave them strength to come forward. I hope the film only adds
to that. The church is not dealing with this in the way it says it
will.

"In one case,
my client complained against a member of staff, and he was simply
moved elsewhere, we are seeing the same happening in Boston in
Spotlight."

The film,
starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, tells the true story of
how the Boston Globe's journalists uncovered the massive scandal of
child molestation and cover-up within the local
Catholic.

The allegations
at St Bede's, with a reputation for being the finest Catholic
grammar school in the north west at the time, relate to Monsignor
Thomas Duggan, Father Charles Mulholland and Father Vincent
Hamilton three senior figures at the school who carried out the
alleged abuse.

They died
before being brought to justice, but the survivors are now taking
out a civil case against the Diocese of Salford for what they say
is a failure to protect them from abuse.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:50 PM

2/2...Allegations range
from inappropriate touching to rape.

Rick Merrin,
one of the survivors, whose police witness statement has been seen
by the Press Association, said: "My time at St Bede's was
consistently marred by these sexual interactions protracted
grooming, sexual abuse and rape with a number of priests and the
often gratuitous violence of the disciplinary system."

He said it was
"difficult to believe" other priests at the diocese were unaware of
what was happening to some of the boys.

But he said he
was speaking to police and lawyers because he hoped that he "can
play even a small role in minimising future clerical abuse and
cover-ups".

Lawyer Mr Beale
said: "I think it's important to remember that these boys came from
very devout, working class families in Manchester.

"They had
scholarships to attend this hugely prestigious school. They were
deprived of the opportunity to flourish and meet their full
potential because of the horrific abuse they suffered.

"These
individuals left school with little or no qualifications, their
relationships broke down and a number have suffered from alcohol
problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety as a result
of the abuse they suffered.

"It wasn't just
the sins of the individual, it was the failure of the church to
address these complaints properly."

The crisis in
Catholicism apparently has one source: women. According to Cardinal
Raymond Burke, since the 1960’s women have “feminized” the church
and discouraged “manly” men from participating in clerical
life.

Burke, 66, the
firebrand conservative who was recently demoted by Pope Francis to
the ceremonial post as patron of the Order of Malta, pointed to the
introduction of altar girls as an example.

Serving mass is
a “manly” job argues the Irish American Cardinal, and so the
participation of women and girls in the daily life of the church
has had a chilling effect that has led to a drop in morale and
priestly vocations.

"Young boys
don't want to do things with girls. It's just natural," Burke, a
Wisconsin native with Tipperary roots, told a group called The New
Emangelization (a conservative organization that exists to put the
“man” back in evangelization).

"It requires a
certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the
side of priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences
of the liturgy as altar boys.”

"If we are not
training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of
serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that
vocations have fallen dramatically," he said.

So it’s not the
international abuse crisis that has most led men to reconsider
joining the church, it’s girl cooties. And feminism, of
course.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:45 PM

2/2“...The
radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since
the 1960s has left men very marginalized,” said the Cardinal, a
member of one of the oldest and most enduring men’s groups on
earth.

“Apart from the
priest, the sanctuary has become full of women. The activities in
the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and
have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get
involved."

Not only do
boys not want to share altar time with the girls, they resent how
much better girls do their jobs apparently.

"The girls were
also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over
time.

I want to
emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar
servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the
Church."

There you go
again girls, breaking into places where you don’t belong and doing
a better job at it. Have you no shame?

Actually, what
you ladies did wasn’t just invasive it was terrible, as Burke
underlines.

“There was a
period of time when men who were 'feminized' and confused about
their own sexual identity had entered the priesthood; sadly some of
these disordered men sexually abused minors; a terrible tragedy for
which the Church mourns."

There you have
it, it was the feminists with their “feminizing” that was the real
engine of the molestation crisis. I’m sure that you’re reading this
and having an Aha! moment. Who could disagree?

Burke, it
should be emphasized, is not calling for complementary roles to be
performed by both sexes in the life of the church, comporting to
their sex.

He’s simply
calling for a removal of all female influence, because it leads men
astray and tarnishes or ruins things.

No wonder Pope
Francis thought he’d be better off sent to pasture rather than
pastoring.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:50 PM

1/3…'I've
been frozen out by the Church for warning police about
paedophile'…

An Irish priest
who called police in Florida after a colleague showed child porn
images to a 14-year-old boy says he has been "frozen out" by the
Catholic Church over his stance.

Fr John A
Gallagher (4
is living in a friend's home after locks at his parochial house
were changed and he was placed on medical leave by his bishop in
the Diocese of Palm Beach.

He claims he
was told by a church official to put a paedophile priest on a plane
rather than cooperate with police. A local police chief, so
concerned at the Irish cleric's treatment, wrote to church leaders
to complain about how the whistle-blower is being
treated.

Fr Gallagher
broke his year-long silence over the affair to tell the Irish
Independent that the priest from India at the centre of the abuse
scandal is a danger to children.He has written
to bishops and cardinals about the case - as well as Vatican
officials and has, so far, been unable to get a satisfactory
response.

The astonishing
case began in January last year when Fr Jose Palimattom - who had
been at the parish of the Holy Name of Jesus Christ Catholic Church
in West Palm Beach for just four weeks approached a 14-year-old boy
after Mass.

He showed the
teenager up to 40 images of naked boys. Police believe he was in
the first stages of grooming his victim.

Later that
night, Palimattom sent the boy a message on Facebook which read:
"Good night. Sweet dreams."

However the
teenager told a friend, who reported it to the church choirmaster,
who immediately told Fr Gallagher.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:47 PM

2/3...The
priest, from Strabane, Co Tyrone, says he was told that night by a
church official in Florida: "We need to make him go away, put him
on a plane."

In documents
filed to the Vatican by a specialist canon lawyer on behalf
ofFr Gallagher,
the priest claimed he was instructed "do not keep written notes" by
the same church official.

The legal
document was sent to Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the
powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in
Rome.

Fr Gallagher
disregarded the instruction to put Palimattom on a plane to
Bangalore and instead interviewed him.

A retired
police officer, who took notes at the meeting, told the Irish
Independent that the Indian priest not only admitted showing nude
pictures of boys to the local teenager, but also admitted he had
sexually assaulted young boys in India before arriving in the
US.

It was a
confession he would repeat to detectives of the West Palm Beach
Police, and Palimattom was later convicted on a felony charge of
showing obscene material to a child.

Fr Gallagher
said he immediately called the Sheriff's Department of the West
Palm Beach Police, following rules set down by the Church after
hundreds of child sex abuse scandals. He says he began to feel "the
wrath" of the Church.

"It was made
clear to me that what I had done (co-operating with the police)
wasn't what I should have done," he told the Irish
Independent.

"It was a very
distressing time for me and the parish.

We had a
special Mass and I told the congregation what had happened. I told
them it was now in the hands of the rightful authorities, the
police."

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:45 PM

3/3..In late
April, he says, he was called to a meeting by the Bishop of Palm
Beach, Gerald Barbarito, where he thought he was going to be
promoted.

Instead he was
told to continue in his role for another year. However, the
following day the decision was reversed.

"He told me I
was being demoted," said Fr Gallagher.

"No reason was
given. He said if I didn't wish to be demoted and moved to another
parish, I should leave the priesthood."

Less than four
weeks later, Fr Gallagher was rushed to hospital with a suspected
heart attack. Six days later he asked Sr Ann Monahan to retrieve
files on the Palimattom scandal from his office at the Holy Name of
Jesus Christ Church.

She managed to
do this, but when she returned later, she was stopped by church
officials and the keys to the building were taken off
her.

"I was told to
leave. When I protested, I was told 'You're fired'," Sr Monahan
(84) told the Irish Independent.

Fr Gallagher
got out of hospital to find his parochial house locks had been
changed. "I was in shock," he said, "I was now
homeless."

A letter seen
by the Irish Independent from the bishop to his priest suggested he
needed "treatment" for his mental health and an all-expenses paid
trip was offered to a clinic in Pennsylvania. Fr Gallagher refused
to go and has been on paid leave since.

Detective Debi
Phillips, in a memo to the Chief Deputy of Palm Beach Sheriff's
Office, wrote: "Reverend Gallagher and his staff provided timely
evidence that was needed to arrest and ultimately convict Jose
Palimattom for the felony charge of

Showing Obscene
Material to a Child."

Despite
numerous emails and phone calls to the Palm Beach Diocese by the
Irish Independent, there has been no response from the Church to
the allegations.

A former
Dragons’ Den star is due to go on trial accused of paying a
13-year-old girl for sex after meeting her on a “Sugar Daddy”
website.

Doug Richard,
57, allegedly spanked the girl’s bottom and engaged in other sexual
activity after she travelled to London to meet him.

The former
adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron is charged with
three counts of sexual activity with a child, one of causing or
inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and a charge of
paying a child for sexual services.

All the charges
relate to one girl who was aged 13 at the time of the alleged
offences on January 2 last year.

The US-born
businessman, of Islington, north London, has denied wrongdoing and
is on unconditional bail.

His five-day
trial will be heard at the Old Bailey before judge Mark Lucraft
QC.

The
millionaire, who appeared in the first two series of the BBC’s
Dragons’ Den, reportedly travelled with the Prime Minister on an
official government trip to Africa and advised on
policy.

He founded a
business loans initiative called School For Startups, alongside the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:39 PM

1/2...Just
six of 350 cases of alleged school abuse settled under State
scheme…

Louise O’Keeffe
accuses State of trying to minimise its legal
responsibilities

Just six of out
more than 350 cases of alleged sexual abuse in schools have been
settled by the State under a State compensation scheme. The scheme
was set up last year after Louise O’Keeffe won her case in January
2014 in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), following a
20-year legal battle.

The court ruled
that the State was liable for abuse carried out by Ms O’Keeffe’s
teacher at a national school in west Cork in the 1970s, when she
was eight years old.

The State’s
compensation scheme applies to abuse that took place before 1991,
when child-protection measures were introduced, subject to the
statute of limitation.

Ms O’Keeffe has
strongly criticised the scope of the compensation scheme, accusing
the State of trying to minimise its legal
responsibility.

She said the
small number of cases processed so far was a sign of the State’s
narrow interpretation of the law.

This includes a
condition that survivors of abuse can qualify only where it is
shown that the school authorities failed to take action in response
to a complaint of abuse.

“There is no
legal basis for suggesting that it is necessary to establish a
prior sexual abuse, before one can succeed.

This is simply
not the law,” she said. “This has been done opportunistically to
minimise the liability of the State to these unfortunate victims. I
find that deplorable and disheartening.”

She also
expressed concern at legal proceedings initiated by the department
last week to strike out a decision permitting it to be sued, along
with the Christian Brothers, by three alleged sexual abuse
victims.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 12:36 PM

2/2....A
spokeswoman for Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan declined to
comment on the latest legal case on the basis that the matters were
before the courts.

She added that
the Department of Education would this week lodge an updated action
plan with the European Court of Human Rights on the Louise O’Keeffe
ruling.

This, she said,
would affirm the Government’s commitment to implementing the
court’s judgment, as well as strengthening child-protection
policy.

While the State
must be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that there was
a prior complaint in all cases, it had adopted a flexible approach
in determining this, according to the department’s
statement.

“Claimants are
not required to come up with a specific type of proof and the State
does not insist on a strict evidential standard in assessing the
material put forward by an applicant,” it added.

In total,
ex-gratia payments are being offered to 210 individuals who came
within the terms of the court’s ruling but who discontinued their
cases.

Many did so
after the department threatened to pursue them for legal costs
after a failed High Court action by Ms O’Keeffe but before her
successful ECHR case.

Each individual
can apply for a maximum ex-gratia payment of €84,000, although it
is not known how many cases satisfy the terms of the court’s
ruling.

In addition,
there are a further 140 new claims in relation to historic abuse
which are being handled by the State Claims Agency.

The agency has
been authorised to make settlement offers in these cases similar to
the terms of the damages awarded in Ms O’Keeffe’s
case.

Ms O’Sullivan
has previously apologised to all children who were sexually abused
as schoolchildren and for the “collective failure” to protect
them.

While there was
no legal obligation to address the situation of some survivors, she
said an ex-gratia scheme was a fair and balanced
solution.

Ms O’Keeffe,
however, said attempts by the State to portray itself as acting in
a sympathetic way were not accurate.

ANON Jan
1rd, 2016 @ 09:50 PM

Catholic
priest investigated for child abuse to retire after review by
church…

A Catholic
priest who was investigated for what were called "safeguarding
issues" is to retire following a church review.

Concerns about
Fr Paul Symonds date back to the 1970s, when he worked in
England.

The priest, who
comes from England, was working as a curate in Ballymena when
concerns about him were brought to the attention of the
authorities.

In 2009, he was
arrested in London by officers from the Metropolitan Police Force's
child abuse investigation team.

Both Fr Symonds
and the Catholic Church authorities cooperated fully with the
police during their investigation.

The priest
stood down from his ministry while the police investigation was
ongoing.

However, the
authorities decided that he would not be charged with any
offences.In 2011, after
the police had completed their work, the Catholic Church began its
own inquiry into Fr Symonds, a former Jesuit priest.

After five
years, the investigation has finally reached the decision that Fr
Symonds will live as a retired priest without any public
ministry.

The decision
came in a statement from the Diocese of Down and Connor, which was
released last night.

Before his 2009
arrest, Fr Symonds had been awarded an OBE for his "tireless
community work" across the Ballymena area and beyond.

ANON Jan
1st, 2016 @ 02:42 PM

Children
Made To Have 'Sexual Acts' With Animals…

A judge finds
that four youngsters aged eight to 14 were taken to a hotel where
they were recorded as abuse took place.

The children
are under the care of Coventry City Council.

Children were
made to engage in "sexual activities" with each other and animals
at a hotel, a judge in a family court has said.

Judge Hilary
Watson said she was looking into cases involving four children aged
between eight and 14.

The activities
were watched by other people and involved more than one type of
animal, the judge said.

The allegations
involved a man that the children knew, she added.

They came to
light after social workers asked the judge to investigate the
claims made by a number of youngsters.

The children
are the responsibility of Coventry City Council.

Judge Watson
said police were involved but she did not reveal whether anyone has
been charged with any offence.

Her written
ruling did not identify anyone involved.

Children have
told investigators they travelled to Birmingham by bus and said
that the abuse took place at a hotel in the city.

They also said
that what happened to them was recorded on video.

The judge's
findings were made after analysing evidence at a family court
hearing in Coventry.

Judge Watson
wrote that some of the "suggestions" might seem "fantastical", but
concluded they were probably a "grim reality".

She said: "In
my judgement, the children are telling the truth when they describe
being taken to a hotel where they had wine and tablets and were
made to perform sexual acts watched by other people.

"It is
suggested that the accounts are not to be believed because the
children report sexual activity with (a) dog and other animals. A
rabbit was described as being frightened and running
off.

"Such
suggestions might seem fantastical but become a grim reality when
seen in the context of my findings that the children have been made
to perform sexual activities with each other for the sexual
gratification of (the man), for the video camera, and for other
people."

The judge
added: "It is highly probable that the children were made to
perform sexual acts on animals."

The Historical
Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) will look into allegations of
wrongdoing at the former Millisle Borstal on the Ards Pensinula
when it convenes again this week.

HM Borstal
Millisle, situated in Woburn House, Ballywalter Road, opened in
July 1956 and closed in December 1980. The Prison Service College
now operates on the site.

Former
residents of the facility are expected to give evidence during two
weeks of public sessions at Banbridge Courthouse.

Proceedings
will begin with a short opening from retired High Court judge Sir
Anthony Hart, who is chairing the long-running probe, before
barrister Joseph Aiken, counsel to the inquiry, gives an overview
of the issues relating to Millisle.

The HIA is
considering harrowing claims of emotional, physical and sexual
abuse at 22 institutions in Northern Ireland over a 73-year period
- from 1922 when the state was founded to 1995.

It is also
looking into alleged actions at homes run by the state and church,
and last November an extra six institutions were added to its
remit.

The inquiry was
established by Northern Ireland's power-sharing ministerial
Executive and is expected to make recommendations on how to
compensate victims.In total, some
300 witnesses are expected to give evidence during the public
sessions.

Investigative
work is due to be completed by midsummer and the inquiry will
submit its report to ministers next January.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 02:59 PM

Three
chances missed to charge Janner over sex abuse claims…

Failures by
police and prosecutors in the UK meant three chances were missed to
charge a senior Labour peer over sex abuse claims, a report has
found.

Alleged victims
of Lord Janner were left "devastated" after a criminal case was
dropped on Friday, decades after they first accused him of
abuse.

The independent
report found that opportunities in 1991, 2002 and 2007 to bring
charges were not acted upon.

He had been
accused of 22 counts of sex offences against boys between the 1960s
and 1980s.

Lord Janner’s
family has always strenuously denied the allegations.

Director of
Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders said the findings confirmed her
"view that failings in the past by prosecutors and police meant
that proceedings were not brought".

"It is
important that we understand the steps which led to these decisions
not to prosecute, and ensure that no such mistakes can be made
again," she added.

Lord Janner
died aged 87 in December, days after he was found unfit to stand
trial after being charged with a string of sexual offences against
nine alleged victims, who were mostly aged under 16 at the
time.

Ms Saunders was
at the centre of a controversy last year after originally deciding
Lord Janner, who had dementia, should not be charged because of his
ill health.

That decision
was overturned by an independent review last year.

A special
hearing known as a trial of the facts had been scheduled for this
year, but last week the criminal case was formally dropped
following Lord Janner's death.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 01:06 PM

1/4...Child
sex abuse services 'overwhelmed', charities claim…

Victims of
child sex abuse are being turned away from support services that
are being overwhelmed by a large rise in cases.

Charity Twelves
Company, based in Devon, said it had turned away 112 people seeking
support in 2015.

A BBC
investigation revealed that in Devon and Cornwall police have seen
a 55% rise in reports of sexual abuse in the past four
years.

Police urged
victims to come forward and said they would be
protected.

Between January
and November 2015, 1,326 reports of sexual abuse were made to the
force, compared with 853 in 2011.

The figures
show more than 380 historic allegations in which the offence was
committed before 1 May 2004 - of rape involving a child have been
reported to the force since 2011.

Jon Brown, head
of development and impact at the NSPCC, said: "Unfortunately there
is a significant gap between the number of people who need help and
therapy as a result of the abuse, and the availability of
services."

He said the
rise in reports was a result of historic cases of child sex abuse
in the news, which had encouraged more people to come
forward.

ANON Jan
1th, 2016 @ 01:04 PM

2/4...Reports of sexual
offences against children

• 853 -
2011

• 888 -
2012

• 979 -
2013

• 1,221 -
2014

• 1,326 -
2015

Mr Brown said
the prime minister had highlighted child sexual abuse as a priority
along with However, Mr Brown said there needed to be a "more joined
up approach [between authorities] to provide the provision of help
for victims" including "greater treatment and help" and working
with schools and families to prevent abuse.